Topic: P.A. Semi

Google's window-shopping for high-tech acquisitions has reportedly netted the search giant yet another asset -- a little-known firm spearheaded by former Apple employees who are working on technology no one knows about.

iFixit and Chipworks this week X-rayed and dismantled the Apple A4 processor that powers the new iPad, discovering a three-layer design with two layers of Samsung RAM and one with the actual microprocessor.

P.A. Semi founder and chief executive Dan Dobberpuhl, who joined Apple as part of the acquisition of his company two years ago, has since left the iPhone maker for a startup venture, according to a published report.

A photograph containing one of Apple's fourth-generation iPhones has been lingering undetected on the web for nearly a week now thanks to having been overshadowed -- quite literally -- by the company's new iPad, AppleInsider has learned.

Exclusive: After four years of meticulous development riddled with setbacks, Apple is now racing toward an early 2010 launch of a device that may see the electronics maker redefine the portable computing market for the second time in twice as many years.

With Apple's first proprietary system-on-a-chip designs still rumored to be under active development, the iPhone maker may turn to ARM's standard v7 Cortex designs for multi-touch devices it plans to launch this year before building off the platform next year.

Apple's fairly public plans to design a family of exclusive chips to power its next-generation iPhone and multi-touch handheld products may not fully materialize until sometime next year, according to the Wall Street Journal, which provides an overview of the matter with a few additional details.

Apple isn't done building its arsenal of chip designers, according to a new report, which claims the company will acquire the services of yet another expert who's enjoyed a long and successful tenure with the ATI/AMD camp.

Imagination Technologies has posted a series of job openings for OpenCL engineers, indicating that the open, general purpose GPU parallelism technology Apple spearheaded for use in Mac OS X Snow Leopard is destined to also play a significant role in boosting embedded graphics and video acceleration on the company's future handheld products.

Apple recently recruited a top chip designer from IBM, resulting in a lawsuit that seeks to prevent the executive from taking his knowledge as "IBM's top expert in Power architecture and technology" to the Mac maker.

Damage control kicked into overdrive at the world's largest chipmaker this week in the wake of comments from two Intel executives who had a field day badmouthing the iPhone and its embedded ARM processor during a public developer forum, apparently without the company's blessing.

Intel Corp. this week used a developer forum in Taipei to tout its upcoming Moorestown platform for next-generation mobile Internet devices (MIDs) while slamming Apple's iPhone as a device bogged down by its use of ARM processors.

Intel on Monday showed off a prototype handheld based on Moorestown, its upcoming Mobile Internet Device (MID) platform designed to enable a new generation of ultra-thin, touchscreen devices with extensive battery life.